To say that I was disappointed with the animated Justice League: Warworld movie is an understatement. It's rare that I come across a Jonah Hex appearance where he's written so off-model that makes me outright angry. Even the 2010 Josh Brolin film, as bad as it was, still got his heart right, and that helps carry me through the crazy shit like Hex talking to dead people. But the nonsense in Warworld is a whole 'nother level. That version of Jonah Hex is heartless from beginning to end, with only a couple of lines ringing true. The one good (?) thing I can say is everyone in the movie gets the short shrift. Only character who acts normal is Lobo, that's it. I really don't know what they were thinking when they put this together: the concept is great, and I was really looking forward to all of it, not just the Hex parts, but the execution is horrid.
Thankfully, I could see right away how to fix it. That's how I've made my fanfic rep, by fixing aspects of Hex history that others broke and walked away from without a second thought to the mess they made. In this case, I had to explain how you'd get a Jonah Hex that abandons his moral code and becomes the monster everyone thinks he is. In truth, the answer is right there in the movie, but they did a terrible job of presenting it in favor of teasing their next project (which I likely won't buy because I'm still salty about all this). So if you haven't seen Justice League: Warworld yet, read this first, then go watch it, you'll enjoy it more. And if you have seen it already, I hope this'll make you feel better. I know I do.
Disclaimer: All characters in this story are owned by DC Comics. Contains dialogue and situations originally seen in the DC animated film Justice League: Warworld.
THE DEATHS OF JONAH HEX
He awoke with a start, gasping, his entire body tensing due to the images that lingered on in his mind's eye: monstrous figures with red eyes and skull-white faces all around him, their clawed hands reaching out to grab him. It had the weight of memory, but of course that couldn't be so, for no such creatures existed...and if they did, he'd certainly have a better recollection of them when awake.
With a groan, he pushed back his hat, rubbed a hand over his face, then sat up from where he'd laying on the floor. It wasn't the best place to sleep, but there was a lot less commotion in this room than elsewhere. View ain't half-bad, neither, he thought as he cast his gaze about. Light poured down from high windows, falling across the simple wooden tables and chairs which were positioned in the middle of the room. Behind them, bisecting the front of the room from the back, was a wall of wrought-iron bars that ran from floor to ceiling, beyond which lay multiple piles of gold. Most of it was still in the form of nuggets, but some had been rendered down into gold bars already, plus one could see a platter filled with double eagles, along with a large gold cross. He wasn't exactly sure where it came from, but he knew the building had once been a Spanish mission, and there were signs of that particular past all over the place, from the saints still positioned in alcoves to the bell up in the tower, so perhaps the cross was another remnant.
The iron bars, however, were a remnant of the military garrison that moved in once the missionaries moved out: the commanding officer had decided this part of the building would be perfect for holding prisoners, so up the bars went, both inside the room and over the windows. Removing them once the garrison decided to relocate must've not been worth the trouble, though, so those stayed behind. This feature would prove to be a boon for the folk that had slowly taken up residence in the area, first in the form of camp followers in tents, and later in more-permanent wooden structures. Yessir, the residents of Last Stand - a name that started in jest due to the overzealousness of the military in regards to drills despite the lack of threats - found themselves in need of a place to store valuables when gold was suddenly discovered in the nearby foothills, so this room was quickly converted into an ad hoc bank vault to hold them.
And that's where the troubles began.
The door to the room creaked open, and a man poked his head in. "Mister Hex? I'm sorry to...oh, you're already awake."
"Whut did Ah tell yuh 'bout thet 'Mister Hex' stuff? Just call me Jonah." He stood up, knocked a bit of dust off of himself, then grabbed his balled-up coat, which (not for the first time) he'd been using as an impromptu pillow. "No need tuh be so damn formal."
"Sorry, it just...well, it doesn't seem right, seeing as you're in charge and all."
"Not by choice." Sheriff Durham had gotten his head blown off by a lucky shot two days prior, and Jonah had simply been the first in their ragtag group to step forward and start giving orders before this whole venture descended into chaos. As he put his coat on, he looked over the skinny fella with the even-skinnier moustache standing in front of him. Tom Colton had been a clerk at the bank, and in a way, the responsibility for this mess rested on his shoulders - he'd been the one to let all these folks in, after all - but the man was too soft to maintain anything close to leadership, so he'd gladly passed the duty on to the sheriff, and Jonah had been dumb enough to pick up that duty after the sheriff fell, like a soldier on a battlefield hoisting the regimental colors after the flag-bearer is cut down. "Ah take it thet jackass is out front again?" Hex asked.
Tom nodded. "He says he wants to negotiate."
Hex scoffed, but followed Tom out to the courtyard regardless. A half-dozen men and women were crouched down with guns all along the wooden catwalk set just a few feet below the top of the adobe wall (another useful feature leftover from the military). Milling about the courtyard itself were numerous other folks, including children, all with expressions of fear and worry stamped on their faces...not to mention hunger. Prior to the beginning of this debacle, the courtyard was used as a kind of open-air market, so there were luckily some foodstuffs and livestock already present when they had to barricade themselves in, but nearly all of it was gone now. Last night, they'd had to slaughter one of the horses just to ensure they had enough food for those dwelling within those walls (there was a single goat remaining, but they'd all deemed it best to keep it alive so long as it kept producing milk, since there was no potable water left). Hex could feel all those pairs of eyes focused on his back as he climbed the ladder leading to the catwalk, then took position at a spot to the left of what remained of the gate's oaken doors, careful the entire time to stay low so as to not give the snipers an easy target.
"You up there, Hex?" a voice called out. "Pretty sure I just caught sight of that ugly face of yours!"
"An' Ah kin hear thet snake-oil voice of yorn, Lash! Either speak yer piece or quit flappin' yer gums, Ah ain't got much patience left fer yuh!" Jonah ventured a peek above the adobe bricks and eventually sighted the man himself: Bartholomew Aloysius Lash, the fancy talker in a white suit coat who'd authored so much misery in this little town. How long had it been since he showed up, making deals with honest folk so's they could buy some mining gear or expand their farm, only to have him turn around and choke them with interest rates so high they'd be indebted to him until Rapture? When they couldn't pay, Lash brought in a passel of thugs to kick them off their own land, and when Sheriff Durham challenged the legality of it all, Lash paid off the judges to make sure all of his crooked contracts were upheld in court.
It was only a matter of time before the metaphorical dam broke, and when it did, most of the townsfolk banded together and took over the bank, intent of getting their money back before lighting out of this nightmare. No one foresaw Lash's men descending upon them with gunfire, slaughtering a score of innocent people before someone thought to shut the long-unused doors on either side of the courtyard entrance. Ever since then, it had been day after day of random bullets and insults lobbed between parties with no end in sight. Not long before Durham's untimely demise, the bastards had driven a Conestoga full of nitroglycerin at said doors, blasting them to smithereens. Now the only thing blocking the entrance was a pair of wagons...and Jonah reckoned they'd be gone soon as Lash rounded up more explosives.
"I still don't see why you care about all this," Lash said. "You don't ranch, farm, or dig gold. You're just a drifter, you don't have a dog in this fight...yet there you are, throwin' your lot in with a bunch of thieves."
"A drifter Ah may be, but Ah still know right from wrong, an' usin' the law tuh steal from folks who just want tuh make a better life fer themselves is about as wrong as it gets!"
"Now look, that part's been long since settled. We're a civilized society, a land of laws, an' those laws say that I am now the rightful owner of this entire town an' the surrounding areas. Lock, stock, an' barrel." Lash adjusted his hat slightly, causing the daisy tucked into the hatband to bob a little, as if nodding in agreement with the conman's words. "The fact that I'm willin' to negotiate with a mob that has taken possession of both my money an' property is nothing short of magnanimous."
Jonah had no clue what "magnanimous" meant, nor did he have any desire to know. Instead, he asked, "An' whut sort of terms have yuh got in mind fer this negotiation?"
"It's very simple: my men an' I will allow all of you to leave town unscathed, provided you do not attempt to take along anything of value from within that bank. Each one of you will walk out here, unarmed an' in single-file, where you will be inspected by my men from head to toe to ensure that you're not tryin' to smuggle anything out. All who pass will be escorted to the train station an' set on board when it arrives this evening from Sweetwater. The fare for each of you shall be paid by myself, a final gesture of grace before we part ways." The smile he offered up with those words stood in great contrast to the scowls worn by the five heavily-armed men surrounding him.
"So everybody's gotta leave town with nothin'? Just the clothes on their backs?"
"An' your lives," Lash amended. "Surely that's worth more to you stubborn folk than what lays in that bank?"
Jonah paused, mulling over each and every word the man had spoken. "An' whut would happen if'n somebody did try an' smuggle something out?"
"Then we'll drag them out of line an' kill them." Lash's smile never wavered.
In the courtyard below, Hex could hear people gasp. He gazed down at them, taking in each and every one of their faces. Despite what Lash had said earlier, he did have a dog in this fight: all the people who'd shown a horribly-scarred saddlebum a speck of kindness, be it a hot meal and a barn to sleep in after lending folks a hand on their farm, or a few cents in his pocket for helping a fella unload goods from a rail car at the station. A man like Bat Lash didn't know what it was like to struggle in this world, while a man like Jonah Hex had known nothing but struggle from the first day he drew breath.
"How long we got tuh decide?" Jonah asked.
"Sweetwater train should arrive by eight, so I expect an answer by seven." Lash produced a pocket watch from his vest and popped it open to consult it. "That gives you...a little less than three hours to make your decision." With that, he turned and walked away with the air of someone who was merely on an afternoon stroll, with the other men soon following after.
The chattering started before Hex's boots could hit the ground. Some folks were panic-stricken, others enraged. To be sure, there was no way to hold a coherent conversation with so many damn people talking at once, so Jonah held up his hands and yelled, "Quiet!" Once they finally settled down, he told them, "Y'all know me well enough tuh put yer trust in me the last couple of days, but there's a whole lot 'bout me yuh don't know, some of which is rather significant right now. Like some of yuh here, Ah fought alongside the Rebs in the War Between the States...least 'til Ah had muhself a little crisis of faith. Once Lincoln made thet Proclamation of his, Ah decided it wasn't right tuh keep fightin' just tuh keep black folks enslaved, so Ah turned muhself over tuh the Yankees as a prisoner of war. Trouble was, they double-crossed me, an' muh whole damn regiment paid the price 'cause Ah wanted tuh do the right thing."
He took a moment to compose himself before continuing, "Ah've carried the guilt of thet with me fer a dozen years. It's kept me from gettin' close tuh anybody, just tuh keep muhself from gettin' in a similar situation. Then all this mess happened." Jonah waved his hand vaguely at their surroundings. "Now here Ah am again, bein' faced with the choice of either surrenderin' or keep fightin' a losin' battle, an' Ah don't plan on makin' the same mistake twice." He pointed at the doors leading to the interior of the bank, saying, "Anybody who wants tuh discuss this one way or another, come on inside with me an' we'll hash this out until we all agree on something."
At precisely seven o'clock that evening, as the last rays of sunlight painted the town in shades of orange and red, one of Bat Lash's snipers spotted someone on the catwalk waving a white flour sack tied to a broom handle. When informed of this, Lash strode out to the spot he'd vacated three hours earlier, this time bringing along twice as many men. The wagons in front of the entrance were rolled aside as they neared, revealing Jonah Hex and thirty bedraggled people of varying ages, races, and genders. There was also a pile of weaponry in plain view, containing everything from pistols and rifles to knives and farming tools.
With a grin, Lash said to them, "I'm happy to see y'all came to your senses."
No one answered, they just began walking forward single-file, as instructed earlier. Jonah was in the lead, and therefore the first inspected: two of Lash's men pulled at his coat, ran their hands down his legs, yanked his hat off his head, then slapped it back against his chest...and Jonah took all the abuse without a word, staring straight ahead at Lash the entire time.
"He's clean," a blond-haired fella called Griz - Lash's second-in-command - declared as he put a hand on Hex's back and shoved him towards his boss before moving on to the others.
"Y'know, it's funny," Lash said, "but I got the strangest feeling that, under different circumstances, you an' me could've been friends."
"Ah doubt thet," Jonah growled. There was an overwhelming urge to bash his fist into the man's face until it was a bloody pulp, but he fought against it. He and the others had come up with a plan, and he needed to stick to it, no matter...
Someone behind him let out a scream, and Jonah turned to see two thugs manhandling Caroline Pembroke, whose husband had died at the beginning of the siege. One of the men had his arms wrapped tightly around her middle, while the other was prying the woman's wedding ring off her finger. Behind them, Jonah could see the rest of Lash's men doing the same to other folk, ripping away brooches, pocket watches, rosaries, even a pearl-topped stickpin. Whirling back to Bat Lash, Jonah snapped, "This ain't whut we agreed tuh!"
"Au contraire, this is exactly what you agreed to. I told you to not take anything of value from within that bank...an' y'all were within the confines of that bank when I spoke those words." The man grinned like a wolf as he said, "Not my fault you thought I was merely referring to the contents of the vault."
More screams joined Caroline's, then the sound of hammers cocking back on guns. Jonah was overcome with the horrific realization that he'd failed again, people he cared about were going to die again...and something inside of him broke. With a roar, he lunged at Bat Lash, both of them falling onto the ground. Hex did his best to ignore all the gunfire happening behind him and instead focus on pounding the smug bastard into oblivion.
And then there was this sudden, intense pain in his gut, and everything from the waist down went numb. With one hand, Lash easily pushed Hex off of him and climbed to his feet, a smoking derringer in his other hand. Though blood was freely pouring from his broken nose and quickly-swelling lip, Bat Lash still managed to smile. "My mistake was showin' you stubborn folk mercy this whole time. Should've killed y'all sooner." He turned towards his men, arms spread wide, and hollered, "I promised you a payday by Tuesday, an' here we are!"
A cheer went up as Lash walked past all the dead townsfolk and through the wide-open gate, with his thugs following closely behind. All the while, Jonah lay on the ground, one hand clutching at his belly wound and his eyes fixed on the twilit sky as he slowly bled to death. He wanted desperately to see if anyone escaped, but there was no strength left in him to even turn his head. All he could do is lay there and pray that everybody remembered the plan and didn't run back into the bank.
The hoots and hollers moved further away, and in his mind's-eye, Jonah could picture Lash and his men walking across the courtyard, passing the pile of weaponry in the center of it as they approached the closed bank doors. The entire time Jonah and the others were barricaded in there, he thought it odd that the one thing they never seemed to run out of was ammunition. The water was gone, the foodstuffs were nearly depleted, but they could always manage to find another box of shells or cartridges or bullets. Why, they'd even found a crate of dynamite one day, complete with blasting caps and a plunger-style detonator...
There was a faint creak from the door leading to room containing the bank vault, followed a split-second later by a tremendous explosion, thanks to the door's movement depressing the plunger on the detonator. It hadn't been easy to rig it all up, but the screams of agony Hex could hear as Bat Lash and his men were either dismembered by the blast or crushed by the building's collapse made it worth the trouble.
With his last breaths, Jonah Hex gasped out, "Hope it...sends yuh...t' Hell..." Then he became just as still and silent as all the other corpses around him.
"How long are we going to have to sit here?"
The dark-haired lady in the cat's-eye glasses was complaining again. Jonah hadn't caught her name, but he'd heard her talk quite a bit over the last six hours. She complained a lot. Not that he blamed her: he was damn sick and tired of sitting in this diner as well, and just wanted to put as much distance between himself and Grover's Mill as possible, but so long as that patrolman was watching the door, no one was going anywhere.
Sitting at the counter, he scrunched down a bit further into his leather jacket and took another sip of coffee. The counter man had been kind enough to keep everyone's cups refilled for free, but that was all. Food cost money, and Jonah had none. He'd hoped to get a job in town, but everyone who got a good look at him turned their back right quick. Whomever said small towns were the friendliest was a damn liar. He couldn't even find a decent place to stay, just a succession of empty buildings. Last night had been a decrepit barn spitting-distance from the diner, and that had only lasted until the snowfall started blowing through the massive gaps in the walls. He gave up on sleeping just before dawn, opting instead to stand on the side of the road with his thumb out in the hopes that someone with a kind heart would come by and give him a lift.
Oh, someone came by, alright, he thought. Just not the sort Ah'd be inclined tuh hitch a ride with.
The bell above the door tinkled, and every head in the place turned to see two men in dark suits walk in. One man was slim and white, the other stout and black. "Ladies and gentlemen," the first man said, "I'm Agent Faraday, and this is Agent Potter. The American government appreciates your cooperation in this matter. We just need to ask you a few questions about what you saw out on the road this morning, then you'll be free to go."
"Finally!" That was the blond fella who'd been driving the truck that had damn-near run him over. "I've got a tanker in a snowdrift and a route to keep."
"This shouldn't take long at all," Agent Potter replied, producing a notebook from inside his coat and flipping it open, his pen poised and ready. "Name and occupation?"
"Harold Grizwold. I'm a long-haul trucker."
Potter noted it down, then moved to the young couple sitting in a booth (they happily announced themselves to be the newly-wed Mr. and Mrs. Lang), followed by the bespectacled lady (her name was Spanish-sounding, Jonah couldn't make it out).
"Bartholomew Aloysius Lash," the counter man blurted out the moment Potter looked his way. "Most folks call me Bat. I'm the temporary weekend manager. You're not gonna call the owner, are you? I really need this job."
"If you cooperate, we won't have to." Potter looked over at Jonah sitting just a few feet away. "And you, sir?"
Jonah had done his level best to keep his head down ever since the agents walked in, dreading the interrogation to come. Authority figures made him nervous, partially due to the way they reacted when they saw his face. "Jonah Woodson Hex," he said, not looking up.
"Occupation?"
"Ain't got one."
"Would you mind looking me in the eye when you speak, Mister Hex?"
Jonah exhaled, then straightened up, causing the agent to back up a step or two when he saw the ruined mess that used to be Hex's right cheek. "May I ask what happened to your face?"
"Someone asked a few too many questions," Jonah replied flatly.
"Quite a sight, isn't he?" Patrolman Carr, who was still by the door, let out a chuckle. "I thought he got injured in that pileup first time I saw him."
"Pileup?" Faraday asked.
Grizwold pointed an accusing finger at Jonah. "It's his fault. I was driving down Highway 5 when that loon jumps out of nowhere. I hit the brakes, and suddenly I'm in a snowbank with two cars on my bumper."
"You could have been driving more carefully," the bespectacled lady muttered.
"I was being careful until he came along! Who the Hell goes hitchhiking in the middle of a snowstorm?"
"Let's put that aside for a moment." Faraday held up his hands for quiet. "I presume it was after the pileup that you saw..."
"The flying saucer." That was the young Mrs. Lang talking, her hand tightly gripping her husband's. "It was like something right out of the movies!"
"We heard it first," her husband added. "It was shrill and whistling, like a scream. Made your teeth vibrate. It sailed right overheard, then slammed into that old barn down the road. We all go over there to check it out, and when we get there, there's footprints around it. I thought someone might be hurt, so I suggested splitting up to find them." He face went pale as he said, "Tell you the truth, agent, I regretted the idea once I got a look at whatever that...that thing was."
Faraday stepped over to the couple. "You saw it?"
"We all saw it!" Grizwold said. "After we split up, I walked around the back of the barn, and my hand to God, an alien ran right out in front of me. It bolted past all of us and headed straight into the woods. We followed right after it, but the snow..."
"It blended right in," the bespectacled lady added. "The alien was tall, and dressed in white. It was impossible to distinguish it from all the snow-covered trees. We searched for a few minutes, until we heard the patrolman calling to us. It...it just vanished."
"Maybe it didn't vanish. Not like y'all think." Bat walked out from behind the counter and over to Faraday. "Don't they say aliens have some kind of mind-control powers? Like they can make you see an' hear things that ain't there? Maybe even...disguise themselves?"
"What are getting at, Mister Lash?" Faraday asked.
"Well, what if..." The man's voice dropped low. "What if it made itself look like a regular person? Or at least as close as it could get?"
"He's right." Grizwold had moved closer as well. "If I were you, I'd take a hard look at anyone who seems different. Strange. Weird."
Through all of this, Jonah had stayed silent. It wasn't his way to talk much, and this whole situation...well, it got him not wanting to think much, either. He'd seen the alien that ran into the woods, same as the rest, but when he saw it, he'd been overcome with an overwhelming sense of familiarity. The same had happened when he heard that sound the flying saucer made. It was like a nightmare he'd experienced before, yet couldn't wake up from.
The way those folks were now whispering and giving him the side-eye, sadly, was very familiar and very real. Ever since his face had been scarred, people treated him like a monster...and in a situation like this, where a true monster was on the loose, it didn't surprise him that they were assuming he was cut from the same cloth.
Faraday was the first to approach Jonah, saying, "You mind telling us how you really ended up with a face like that, Mister Hex?"
It wasn't something he liked to talk about, but knowing he didn't have much choice if he wanted to go on breathing, Jonah opened his mouth...and nothing came out. Try as he might, he couldn't remember how he'd become scarred. How in blazes could he forget something like that? Desperate for a deflection, he glared at all of them and said, "Ain't no way Ah could be thet whutever-it-was! Yuh seem tuh be overlookin' the fact thet Grizwold over there damn-near runnin' me over was whut caused the accident tuh begin with. How could Ah do thet if'n Ah arrived in thet big ol' tin can afterward?"
"Maybe you're just making us think that's how the accident happened," Grizwold replied. "Maybe my truck skidded on the icy road instead."
"Certainly plausible," Patrolman Carr added, still standing by the door.
"I imagine it would take a great amount of concentration to make eight people all see the same illusion," the lady in the cat's-eye glasses mused, "especially if you've never seen a human being before crash-landing here. Mistakes could happen...holes in the illusion."
Mrs. Lang nodded. "Like an asymmetrical face."
"Now wait a damn minute!" Jonah shouted as he jumped off the stool. "Ah ain't no monster! Ah swear tuh Christ thet Ah ain't!"
"Then tell us how you got that face!" Bat shot back, taking a menacing step toward him. The others were all on their feet now as well, slowly closing in on him and repeating, "Tell us! Tell us! Tell us!"
"Shut up, damn yuh!" Jonah clapped his hands over his ears and squeezed his eyes shut as he tried to think. All the while, a horrifying fear grew in his gut: maybe he really was a monster, but had somehow convinced himself otherwise. The barn that thing had crashed into was the same he'd slept in...what if the night he'd spent there was just his imagination? And why couldn't he remember anything prior to Grover's Mill? No family, no friends...nothing but the clothes on his back. And why did that monster look so damn familiar?
"No...no, Ah ain't no monster," Jonah said through gritted teeth. "Muh name is Jonah Woodson Hex, an' Ah'm...Ah'm a..." The word was just out of reach, the word that would unlock his mind and break him free of this nightmare, but he just...couldn't...
"Grab him!" somebody yelled, and the others surged forward as one. They tried to take hold of him, but Jonah fought them off, slipping out of their grasp and managing to get a little closer to the door leading out of the diner. Unlike the others, though, the patrolman hadn't moved an inch, so Jonah instinctively reached beneath the collar of his leather jacket and pulled out a knife. Agents Faraday and Potter both pulled out their revolvers at the sight of it, with the white man shouting, "Drop it! Whoever or whatever you are, we will shoot if you try to leave!"
"Better listen to them," Patrolman Carr said with eerie calm. "I think they're serious."
The knife still held out in front of him, Jonah glanced at the patrolman...and realized he wasn't armed. No gun, no holster. Whut kinda lawman don't have a gun? Jonah thought, then realized the truth of the matter. "Sonovabitch...got us all fooled!" With that, Jonah lunged at Patrolman Carr and buried the knife in his chest, just above the man's badge.
The gunshots rang out while he was in mid-leap, causing Jonah to fall to the floor once the deed was done, but he didn't let go of the knife - the weight of his body dragged the patrolman to the floor as well. The civilians were screaming as the agents moved in to help the patrolman, and soon, they were screaming as well, for the injured patrolman's body had begun to grow larger, the uniform melting away to reveal bone-white skin and a mouth full of needle-sharp teeth.
Jonah Hex got only a glimpse of all this before the last remnants of life faded away.
"This ain't right, an' yuh know it!" Sheriff Hex stalked up to Judge Faraday so he could holler directly in the man's face. "Them contracts ain't worth the paper they're printed on!"
"In your opinion, maybe," Faraday replied in a surprisingly-calm tone, "but it's the court's opinion that matters here. And being a duly-appointed representative of that court, I don't see anything amiss here."
"Bullshit!" The last shred of decorum dropped away, and Hex made ready to punch Faraday's light out, but two of Pembroke's thugs grabbed him by the arms. "Conniving little bitch," Hex growled, turning his venom upon the Widow Pembroke standing just a few feet away. "This is the sort of double-crossin' yuh get when yuh conduct business with a woman."
Pembroke offered up a demure smile. "Mister Pembroke taught me well before his death. He wanted to ensure that I was well taken care of once he'd passed on."
"Ah'm startin' tuh doubt there ever was a 'Mister Pembroke'," Hex told her. Like everyone else in the town of Last Stand, Sheriff Hex had been taken in by Pembroke's sob story of losing her husband at such a young age and with her fervent desire to start over in a new place. The fact that she had enough money to loan out to those in need didn't hurt anyone's opinions none, neither. Then she began calling in all those loans, snatching up their property and mining claims left and right when they couldn't pay. By the time her thugs arrived in town to help evict folks from their homes, Hex had already wired Faraday - a circuit judge he'd known for years - to ride in and settle this nonsense once and for all. The last thing he expected was for his old friend to take Pembroke's side. "So tell me, King," Hex said, referring to the judge by his unusual first name, "how long has this woman been payin' yuh off?"
Faraday glared at the sheriff. "How dare you accuse..." he began to say, but was soon interrupted by Lang - one of Hex's deputies - slamming open the door to the sheriff's office.
"Boss! We got trouble at the bank!" The young man's eyes were wide with panic. "Folks have done stormed the building, and Baxter..." Lang took a second to gulp down air. "I think Baxter's opened up the vault for 'em!"
"Damnation." Hex bolted out the door, pausing only long enough to grab his rifle propped next to it.
"You had best arrest each and every one of those people, sheriff!" Pembroke shouted after him. "The contents of that vault are my property, the same as the rest of this town."
"Not so long as there's breath in muh lungs, it ain't!" Hex hollered back as he jumped on his horse and spurred it down the street. Speed was of the utmost importance, for he feared what the hardcases in Pembroke's employ might decide to do. Sure enough, the ones closest to the bank were hustling over there with guns of their own, and as people came out of the building, Hex saw Pembroke's men line up like a firing squad and take aim. Ah normally take no pleasure in killin' anybody, he thought as he placed the reins in his teeth and brought the rifle up his shoulder, but this here is special case.
A couple of townsfolk were gunned down by Pembroke's men before Hex could begin firing, and he would go to his grave regretting that. When he let the previous sheriff of Last Stand pin that silver star on his shirt, Jonah Hex had vowed to do everything in his power to protect these people. Prior to the War, Jonah hadn't really called anyplace "home" for quite some time, and he reckoned the same would be true once he'd surrendered in 1865. Then he found his way to Last Stand, a place that didn't judge him for either the scars on his face or the color of the uniform he'd worn previously. They were good people, every last one of 'em, and he'd be damned if he was about to let some duplicitous woman from back East steal away everything they'd worked so hard for.
Gunsmoke filled the air, making it difficult for Hex to find his targets, but it also made it hard for those skunks to return fire accurately. A few got lucky, though, hitting both Hex and his mount hard enough to knock both down to the dirt. The sheriff howled when he felt his left leg shatter under the weight of the now-dead horse, and he soon found four of Pembroke's men surrounding him, all with their guns pointed at his head.
"Fish in a barrel, boys," one of them - Durham, Hex believed his name was - said as he cocked the hammer back on his Smith & Wesson. "Just like the widow told us."
Someone let out a holler, then Hex saw Doc Potter tackle Durham to the ground. Other townfolk quickly joined in, pummeling each of Pembroke's thugs and ripping their guns away. A few more lifted the dead horse as best they could so Lang could pull his boss free. "Doc, get over here!" the deputy yelled. "Sheriff's gutshot!"
"Dear God." Potter knelt down so he could get a better look. "Somebody fetch my bag!"
"Forget it...doc," Jonah gasped out. "Ah ain't stupid. Know there ain't much...yuh kin do. Saw enough of these...in the War..."
"What have I told you about telling war stories?" Potter sounded stern, but it was a long-running joke between the former Confederate and the former slave who'd become a doctor.
"Let a dyin' man...have one last reminisce." Hex grinned, showing bloodstained teeth. From far away, he could hear someone shouting, and he turned his head as best he could to see Pembroke and Faraday approaching. Got some business tuh finish up afore Ah go, he thought as he snaked a hand down to the ivory-handled Colt Dragoon holstered on his hip. Going by the looks on their faces, the two dirty-dealin' skunks likely didn't believe Hex was about to shoot them, but that's exactly what he did, drilling each of them between the eyes. "There...now it's over," he whispered as his gun hand dropped heavily to the ground, then his eyes began to close.
"Boss!" Lang leaned down towards Hex's face. "You gotta hang in there, boss!"
"Naw...Ah'm done. Yer turn." The dying sheriff didn't open his eyes. "Take care of 'em. Keep 'em..." There was more he wanted to say, but he didn't have the strength. Little by little, he felt himself slide down into the dark. He used to be so afraid of dying: for as long as he could remember, the idea of death conjured up images in his mind of demons with skull-white faces and long claws pulling him down into Hell. Doc Potter said it was likely guilt from what Jonah had done in the War, but the images predated it, he was certain.
However, as life finally left his scarred and battered body, the long-feared demons didn't come, and instead Sheriff Jonah Hex passed away surrounded by numerous friends...something he never imagined occurring.
"Why aren't they coming?" The ever-present sun of Skartaris beat down upon Lord Baxter's balding head as he stood before the window, gazing out over the warring armies below. He knew he should avoid exposing himself like that, for there was no guarantee that an enemy arrow could not reach him in that high tower, but his desire to watch the horizon overrode common sense at that moment. "Machiste swore he would bring the Warlord to defend us, yet still they do not show!" Lord Baxter turned to look at the scar-faced man posted at the solitary door to the room and asked, "Are you certain Machiste was able to ride past our border?"
"Thet he did," the man replied. His accent was strange as always, close to a growl, but understandable enough. Lord Baxter had heard many tales about this man: it was said he'd been raised by a primitive tribe, one that had not yet discovered steel, but were nonetheless ferocious warriors. The nobleman had seen more than enough proof of that in the previous battles waged upon his doorstep, which was why he'd chosen the man as his personal guard once Captain Durham had fallen. The man had shunned the usual guard uniform, however, preferring to remain clad only in deerskin breeches and moccasins, so all could see the numerous scars that covered his bare torso. The one on his face was the most impressive, and had supposedly been caused by a demon that had cursed him to wander Skartaris alone until his dying day.
Having never offered up his name to anyone, it was that tale which inspired those around the man to call him Hex.
Lord Baxter mopped sweat from his brow as he said, "The waiting is unbearable. At this rate, we will be overrun before the Warlord arrives. Perhaps I should have sent you along with him the entire way, just to ensure he reached his destination unscathed."
"It wouldn't have mattered," Hex replied. "He would've died where he did whether yuh'd told me to ride on with him or not."
"W-w-what?" The nobleman's face went pale. "Did you say he's..."
"Dead. Very much so."
"But...but you said he made it past the border!"
"About a half-mile. Then I put three arrows in his back." Hex reached into a deerskin pouch hanging from his belt and pulled out a spiked mace the size of a man's fist, which - until recently - had been affixed to the end of Machiste's right wrist to make up for his amputated hand. "Collected a nice souvenir after doin' the deed."
"By the gods...you swore an oath to protect me, and yet you've turned traitor! I should have known better than to trust a savage!" Lord Baxter rushed to the door, shouting, "Guards! Come inside, quickly! I need you to..."
The shouts were cut short by the dagger that Hex suddenly thrust into Lord Baxter's windpipe. Fountains of crimson streamed down Lord Baxter's robes and across Hex's scarred flesh. It was not the first time he'd been baptized by the blood of an enemy, and he certainly doubted it would be the last. There was a tiny flicker of regret for what he'd done, but he knew it served a greater cause, one which he'd been working towards for a long time, and was now nearly complete. All he had to do was deliver the proof of his deed to the one who'd sent him.
The door Lord Baxter had been so desperate to reach began to swing open, so Hex threw himself against it, causing the guards on the other side to pound upon the wood. There was an iron locking bolt set into the door, and Hex rammed it home, then he toppled over a decorative stone pillar that stood nearby. Satisfied that these obstacles would keep the guards at bay, Hex knelt down and set to work with his dagger, sawing through Lord Baxter's neck muscles and spinal cord until he was able to rip the man's head free from his body. Gripping it firmly by a hank of thinning hair with one hand, he reached once more into his deerskin pouch with the other. Sitting just below Machiste's prosthetic was a palm-sized brass disc: Hex held it high and pressed a tiny switch along its edge, causing it to open and a strange green mist to pour out over him. He suppressed a shiver as the mist engulfed him from head to foot, muffling the shouts of the guards as well as the distant sound of battle coming through the window.
When the mist parted, the room he'd been standing in was gone, replaced by a shadowy chamber lit by torches. An ornately-carved marble throne was situated in the center of the chamber, and upon it lounged the witch known as Shakira, her long hair as dark as the fur-trimmed garments she was clad in. "There you are," she purred. "I was beginning to think Lord Baxter's forces had snuffed you out."
"They never suspected a thing." Hex tossed the severed head at the base of the throne. "With their leader gone, yer army will likely have control of the stronghold soon. Of course, yuh'll now have tuh contend with both the Warlord an' Deimos wantin' tuh take it from yuh."
"A concern for later. At the moment, they are too focused upon each other to notice all the smaller kingdoms I've been taking over. By the time they realize I've hemmed them in, there will be little they can do about it." A playful smile came to her lips. "It's rather strange, but there are times when I am struck with the notion that, under different circumstances, the Warlord and I could have been friends."
"A bit late fer thet, Ah think," Hex replied. "Now, if'n yuh'll be so kind as tuh grant me whut Ah asked fer, Ah'll be on muh way."
"Of course." She made a beckoning gesture with her slim fingers, and a gossamer-clad girl emerged from the shadows. She was young , perhaps twelve summers, with a spray of freckles across her cheeks and red hair a few shades lighter than Hex's own. Her hands and feet were shackled, the chain between them allowing her just enough movement to walk as well as to hold up a golden platter laden with coins and jewels. "It's all yours," Shakira explained, "as much as you can carry. More than fair compensation for your deeds."
Hex scowled, not just at the sight of the poor slave girl (such mistreatment of others had always sickened him), but also at the notion of what was being offered. "This is not whut we agreed upon," he snarled. "Yuh promised tuh tell me where the white demons made their lair."
The witch threw back her head and laughed. "Are you still clinging to that fairy tale? I don't know what happened to your people, but I assure you, these 'white demons' you obsess over never existed. They're just some myth made up to scare children."
"Yo're a liar! Ah saw 'em! Ah saw whut they did!" The memory of that long-ago day still burned bright in his mind: monstrous creatures with bone-white skin and fire-red eyes descending upon his tribe's tiny village, killing many and dragging some of his people off to parts unknown. Before then, he'd been known as Jonah, Son of the Woods, a great hunter and tracker whose skills with the bow were unmatched. But after the demons scarred him with their razor-sharp claws and left him for dead, he buried his name alongside those the demons had killed, and refused to speak it again until his tribe was avenged. Nearly nine summers had come and gone, and in that time, he'd walked the length and breadth of Skartaris searching for those fulsome creatures, following the merest whisper of their existence. Most thought them to be some sort of ghosts, for they could only recall seeing them out of the corner of their eye, nor could they point to any trace of their passing.
And then he encountered Shakira, who assured him that she could lead Hex to the doorstep of the white demons. But first, he had to do her a little favor.
The witch continued to laugh as Hex realized he'd betrayed Lord Baxter's trust for nothing. Despite all he'd suffered, he always upheld the ways of his tribe so as to not dishonor their slain spirits. Whenever faced with a difficult decision, he remembered the words imparted by his adoptive father: All men are evil. From the moment they are born, a darkness resides in their souls. It cannot be tamed, only held back, like a snarling dog on a sturdy leash. As you grow older, you must learn when to let go of that leash, so that your darkness can consume the evil of those who are more dangerous to the world than yourself. He knew those words were truth, for his actual father - the one who'd abandoned him in the wilds to die before his adoptive father's tribe found him - definitely had a darkness dwelling within him. That man was a monster, and now... now it appeared Hex had become a monster as well, one who'd been so blinded by his desire for vengeance that he'd unleashed his darkness upon two innocent men.
"Don't look so disappointed," Shakira said, sliding off of her throne and walking towards him. "Your tribe may be gone, but I still have a need for a man of your talents." The witch gently pushed the slave girl aside as she approached Hex, her other hand reaching out to caress his bare chest, which was still spattered with blood. "Any members of Lord Baxter's army that choose to join mine shall need a firm hand to guide them. I believe you would do well in a position of authority." Her hand moved upwards as she teased a lock of his long reddish-brown hair around her finger. "And there are certain benefits that come with such a position."
A heady perfume seemed to fill the air between them, and Hex's thoughts seemed to slow, his muscles became weak. He very much wanted to lay down, preferably with Shakira beside him so he could peel away the furs covering her bosom and taste the sweat beading upon her flesh. As his hands gripped her shoulders and he leaned down for a kiss, he dimly recalled smelling a similar perfume when he first encountered Shakira, only then, the scent of it stirred not feelings of lust, but rather hatred. A hatred of Lord Baxter, and Machiste, and all that the Warlord stood for...
It took a great effort, but Hex managed to shove Shakira away, knocking her to the floor. He then took a few steps back, slipping his bow off his shoulder and nocking an arrow, which he aimed at her treacherous heart. "Ah won't let yuh ensnare me again, witch."
"Do you really think a mere arrow will slay me?" she asked as she began to climb to her feet. "I wield magicks more powerful than anything you can..."
Hex let the arrow fly, cutting her off mid-sentence and causing her to fall flat on her back. Blood was already pooling beneath her body as he trod over to the slave girl, who was crouched down beside the witch's throne. He held out a hand, saying, "Come with me. Ah'll take yuh far from this nightmare, tuh someplace no one will ever put yuh in chains again." But the girl refused to look at him, her eyes instead fixed upon the spot where Shakira lay. "Never mind her, she's dead," he reassured her.
Then Hex heard a deep growl behind him. He whirled around to see Shakira push herself up onto all fours and yank the arrow out of her chest. During his time in Lord Baxter's employ, he'd heard a rumor about the witch, specifically that she was more cat than woman. It appeared the rumor was true, for her body had begun to contort, the black furs she was clad in now spreading across her skin, bonding with it. Then Shakira lifted her head towards them and roared as her once-human face melted away to reveal whiskers, fangs, and blazing green eyes.
Though momentarily stunned by the sight, Hex had enough presence of mind to drop his bow and reach for the twin daggers sheathed upon his hips, one of which had previously been embedded in Lord Baxter's throat. In contrast to Hex's rough-hewn manner, the daggers had an elegance to them with their silver blades and ivory handles carved in the image of dragons. He'd acquired them early in his travels from someone who claimed they were capable of killing any demon. While Hex had yet to test this, he hoped they were at least up to the task of killing a were-panther.
The now-transformed Shakira leapt at Hex, her massive paws slamming into his chest with enough force to send him to the ground. Her fang-filled mouth immediately went for his throat, but Hex had tangled with big cats before, so he jammed his forearm in between her jaws, while twisting the dagger in that hand around so he could drive the point of it into her eye. With the other dagger, he went to work on her abdomen, stabbing and ripping with all his might. Shakira, meanwhile, did the same to him with both her back and front claws, not to mention the crushing damage her powerful jaw muscles inflicted upon Hex's forearm.
After long minutes of bloody struggle, the were-panther slumped forward, and a cry of pain was finally loosed from Hex as her full weight fell upon him. He knew this victory meant little, for there wasn't much feeling left in his limbs, and he was certain the spill of intestine slithering beside him came from his own belly. Even breathing was a monumental task, alleviated only a little by Shakira slowly transforming back to her human self. He then heard a clink of chains, and suddenly the weight upon him was fully removed, for the slave girl had taken hold of the witch and pulled her off of him. The girl ran her hands over her fur - which had become mere garments once again - and eventually produced a small key. This was quickly put to work upon the girl's shackles, and soon, her hands and feet were free of their bindings. The elation on her face was plain to see, and she took a moment to revel in the feeling before turning towards the door that led out of the chamber.
Witnessing all of this, Hex tried to speak, but all he could manage was a wordless grunt. It was enough to make her pause and come to his side, though. With his last ounce of strength, he lifted his gore-streaked hand to offer the girl his dagger. She took it from him and, after a moment's hesitation, knelt down to pluck the other from the ruined limb that still held it. Clutching both tightly to her chest, she whispered to him, "Thank you."
The phrase echoed down the dark tunnel Hex found himself falling into. He feared it not, for he knew the spirits of his people awaited him on the other side, ready to welcome Jonah, Son of Woods, back into their number.
"Ah've 'bout had muh fill of yer nonsense, Tom," Jonah Hex said as he stormed into the saloon, with Carr and Faraday right behind. "This idea of takin' over a town was a bad one from the start. It's the sort of harebrained scheme muh Pa would've cooked up!"
"Why didn't you bother to say so before?" Tom Colton answered calmly, not even looking at Hex. Instead, he fixed his eyes upon Griz, the bartender, and pointed a finger down at the polished mahogany bar. Griz quickly delivered a bottle of whiskey and a glass, not wishing to do anything that might anger the man. He and the few girls remaining in the saloon had managed to stay on the good side of these outlaws so far, but there was always the chance that one wrong move could spell death for the lot of them.
"Maybe 'cause this looked like a town full of pushovers afore we got underway, but now..." Hex paused at a nearby table and placed his hands on the back of one of the chairs. "Yuh ever go a rodeo, Tom? They got this thing called a goat rope. A bunch of little boys get a chance tuh show off their ropin' skills by chasin' a goat 'round the ring, only it usually turns into a mess 'cause they're just boys pretendin' like they know whut they're doin'. Thet's whut this damn thing has turned into: one big...fuckin'...goat rope!" He emphasized the last words by picking up the chair and throwing it at the side of the bar, missing Tom by only a foot or so.
Tom glanced over at the busted remains of the chair. "You through?"
"Not by a long shot. Me an' the boys are sick of waitin' on them sodbusters tuh give up. Maybe if'n we could kill thet damn sheriff, they'd lose their nerve, but Baxter's got more lives than a cat, an' now thet they've gone an' picked off our best sniper, it ain't likely tuh happen at all. So it's time tuh stop showin' 'em mercy. No more half measures."
"Sounds like you want to take over this operation." Taking a moment to finish his drink, Tom finally turned around to look Hex in the eye. "You think you got the sand to do it?"
"Jonah's making more sense than you these days, Tom," Carr said.
Tom glared at him. "You too, Snapper? All the times I've saved your hide, and now you're gonna turn Judas on me?"
Snapper Carr seemed to shrink down a little, then replied, "I just...you promised us a payday by Tuesday, and all we've got so far is a worthless town in the middle of nowhere and some played-out mines. This siege has ate up all the money and supplies we had."
"Which is why we're gonna end it," Hex added, "once an' fer all."
"Damn right, we are." Tom reached into his coat and produced a pocket watch, saying, "Did I ever tell you about this timepiece? My great-grandfather carried it through the Revolutionary War. My grandfather, though the War of 1812. My father had it during the Mexican-American War. And I took it through the War Between the States. Had to hide it for a year from the Yankee guards after I was captured at Shiloh." A smile played across Tom's lips. "Uncomfortable, I'll admit, but it still keeps the time."
"Get tuh the point, or else Ah'll put it right back up there sideways," Jonah growled.
"Point is, my family has a tradition of settling their disputes with this watch." He pressed a tiny button on the watch, and the tinkling of chimes could be heard. Setting it on the bar, he told Hex, "When the chimes stop, make your move."
Nothing more needed to be said. Griz and the saloon gals quickly moved away, as did the other men, while Colton and Hex faced each other down, their hands hovering near their pistols. The only sound in the bar was the chiming of the pocket watch, as well as the faint ticking of its second hand. Presumably, the chimes would stop once the second hand made a full sweep of the dial, but somehow, Jonah knew that wasn't the case. It was going to get stuck, and the chimes would slow down, right...about...
The two men cleared leather almost simultaneously. Tom caught a bullet right in the heart, while Hex managed to jerk aside just enough to only get winged. It still hurt like Hell, but he'd live, unlike his adversary, who'd already collapsed on the saloon floor. A dark-haired saloon gal - her name was Spanish-sounding, Jonah couldn't recall exactly what it was - cried out and ran over to Tom. Must've gotten sweet on him, Hex mused as he stepped up to the bar to pick up the pocket watch. He couldn't recall Tom talking at length about it before, much less showing off the odd chime, so how did he know about it? 'Cause Bat Lash told me, he suddenly recalled, which made his brow furrow. Who in blazes is Bat Lash?
He was still puzzling over this when the saloon gal grabbed Tom's pistol. No one had a chance to grab it away from her before she shot Jonah Hex in the back of the head, blowing his brains out all over the polished mahogany bar.
"Agent Hex!" A hand fell on his shoulder and yanked him away from the diner counter, spinning him around so that he was facing Agent Carr. "What the Hell are you doing?"
"Takin' care of his smart mouth," Hex replied, jerking a thumb behind him at the drifter, who'd jokingly given the name "Burroughs Ginsburg Kerouac" when Hex was questioning him. So Hex grabbed him by the back of the head and gave him a quick rap on the counter, a move which Carr obviously disagreed with.
"I know you're new to the Central Bureau of Intelligence, but that is not how we do things. Understand?" When Hex didn't respond right away, Carr snapped his fingers at him, saying in a sterner tone, "Do you understand?"
"Yessir." Hex stepped away from the drifter, who was wiping at the blood trickling from his nose, and turned his attention to the black man behind the counter. Glancing at his name tag, the agent asked, "Whut kinda name is 'Machiste'?"
"It's French," the counter man replied.
"Yuh own this here diner, Mister Machiste?"
"I'm the temporary weekend manager. Hoping to make it permanent, owner's been good to me so far."
Hex grunted, then gestured with his pen to Machiste's right arm, which ended in a two-pronged hook. "How'd yuh lose the hand?"
"Probably the same way you lost part of your face." Machiste straightened up a little, then added, "Sir."
The good side of Jonah Hex's mouth twisted slightly. It was a solid jab, but that didn't mean he had to like it.
"Is there any way we can hurry this along?" The hefty woman dressed in men's coveralls - Taggart, she'd said her name was - crossed her arms and glared at the two agents. "I've got a tanker in a snowdrift and a route to keep."
"We should be through shortly," Carr told her. "The American government appreciates your cooperation in this matter."
The drifter sketched off a salute, saying, "Anything for Uncle Sam and his United States, man." Hex whirled around and glared at the drifter, who visibly shrank back from his gaze.
The rest of the questioning was rather sedate, with each witness describing the crash of the flying saucer and its occupant to the best of their ability. As Hex wrote it all down in his notebook, he felt a growing sense of unease, as though he'd heard all of this before. No, he hadn't heard it, he'd seen it, he was certain of that. As the businessman named Potter told Agent Carr about how they'd all followed the whatever-it-was into the woods, Hex flipped over to a blank page and began drawing. He was no artist, not by a long shot, but he got the gist down of the image that kept coming to mind. Once he'd finished, Hex held it up, asking those assembled, "This is whut yuh saw, ain't it?"
The diner went dead silent, every eye fixed on the gangly figure Hex had sketched out in the notebook. After a moment, Patrolman Grizwold - he'd told the agents to call him Griz - said to him, "Those things on its head...the horns, I guess...they need to be flatter. More like..." The patrolman pressed his hands against the sides of his head, as if patting something down.
"Let me see that." The drifter came up beside Hex and put a hand on the notebook. Producing a pen of his own, the drifter began to rework what Jonah had drawn. Soon, with some suggestions from the others present, the drifter's fine-lined style had turned Jonah's crude artwork into something that better resembled what the witnesses had seen.
"Yuh got a talent, son," Hex admitted.
"Thanks," the drifter replied, "though, honestly, I didn't know I could draw that well. I just...kinda felt like I could do better than what you did."
"Like it was something yuh forgot 'bout 'til it was in front of yuh. Thet's how y'all talkin' made me feel." Hex tapped the drawing. "Ah wasn't here when thet thing crashed down, but Ah know in muh gut exactly what it looked like. Same as yerself." He looked over at Griz, saying, "Yuh got here later, too, after the thing was long gone. Yet yuh described it just as well as everyone else."
"And me." Carr's eyes were wide. "My hand to God, I've never laid eyes on that creature in my life, but the moment you held that picture up..." He turned to Machiste, who was still behind the counter. "I need to borrow the phone, call CBI headquarters. Something else is going on here, something bigger than a UFO."
As Machiste led the agent into the back of the diner, the man who'd identified himself as Bartholomew Lash stood up and asked, "What about the rest of us? My wife an' I are still on our honeymoon, are we..." The woman he'd been sitting next to let out a gasping sob, so he turned back to her. "Caroline? What's wrong, darlin'?"
"I...I don't..." She pressed her hands to her mouth, as if to try and hold back the words she was about to speak. "I don't think you're really my husband."
The shock of that statement barely had time to settle in before the diner window she was sitting next to exploded inward. A clawed hand as white as the snow falling outside reached through and grabbed onto Caroline, who rightfully shrieked in abject terror. Beyond the broken pane, glowing red eyes could be seen, along with a leering mouth full of needle-sharp teeth. Lash tried to pry Caroline free of the creature's grasp, but as he did so, the arm suddenly bisected, with the new hand grabbing hold of him was well. Instinctively, Hex drew his sidearm and fired at the skull-white face outside, and while an inhuman wail could be heard, the bullets didn't deter it from dragging the couple through the window. Seconds later, a window on the far side of the diner was smashed open, only this time, it was more than a hand that came through: a massive humanoid creature that precisely resembled what had been drawn on the agent's notepad now stood in their midst, and two more were clambering through the window after it.
Once again, instinct took over for Hex, and he put himself between the aliens and the innocent folk in the diner. It did little good, however, as the door to the diner at the opposite end burst open, revealing another trio of aliens. Being closest to the door, Patrolman Grizwold opened fire upon them, and Hex quickly did the same with the ones in front of himself. The aliens wailed in pain, yet still they advanced, until one of them wrapped its fingers around Hex's head - he could swear he saw its fingers grow longer as it reached for him - and threw him over the diner's counter. Thankfully, he passed through the horizontal opening in the wall between the seating area and the kitchen, though his back smashing into the burner dials on the stove wasn't exactly pleasant.
Hitting the floor with a thud, Jonah let out a groan that could barely be heard above all the screams coming from the dining area. He tried to move his legs, but there was no feeling in them: either his spine had busted, or he was in too much shock from the blow. He'd lost his gun as well, all of which added up to him being a sitting duck once those monsters got a hold of him again. Suddenly, he felt a hand upon his shoulder, so Jonah balled up his fist and made ready to strike, but then he saw it was Agent Carr sprawled out beside him, covered in blood from a hideous head wound. With a shaking hand, Carr pointed towards the other end of the kitchen, where an already-dead Machiste was having his intestines consumed by one of the aliens - presumably, the diner had a back door, and it had come through while its brethren had been attacking the front. Carr then pointed at something above Jonah, and though it took some effort, he twisted around to see the broken stove dials. He didn't understand what Carr was getting at until the smell hit him.
Gas. It was a gas stove, and Jonah had damaged it when the alien had thrown him.
When Hex turned back, Carr was already pulling a lighter out of his coat pocket with his last bit of strength. The man's hand went limp as he tried to pass it over to his partner, who retrieved it and held it up as high as he could. Ah hope it sends y'all tuh Hell, Jonah Hex thought as he flicked it to life, igniting the gas that quickly blew the diner to smithereens.
"How's she doin'?"
"Finally stopped throwing up," Caroline replied as Jonah took a seat on the floor across from her in the makeshift infirmary. Between them, their twelve-year-old daughter Jessie lay on a blanket, her face deathly pale, which made the spray of freckles across her cheeks stand out even more. "She was calling for you earlier."
"Sorry Ah wasn't here. Me an' the sheriff was havin' a palaver." He passed a Mason jar over to his wife, saying, "This here's from Miss Taggart. Her goat's gettin' a mite tired, but it's still producin' milk."
"Bless her." Caroline smiled, which gladdened Jonah's heart. There had been very few bright moments in this long nightmare that began when King Faraday (no way in Hell that was his real name) arrived in the town of Last Stand, offering loans to anyone willing to put up their stakes as collateral, be it farmland or a spot to prospect. The Hexes had taken him up on the offer so they could make a few improvements to their homestead, only to get swindled like everyone else when Faraday suddenly called in those promissory notes. The revolt came not long afterward, when the Hexes and many other folks made a run on the bank to cash out what little money they still possessed and leave town, only to have Faraday's hired thugs open fire upon them when they tried to exit the building. Thankfully, they had Sheriff Machiste on their side: he'd been fighting tooth and nail against Faraday's schemes the moment they were revealed, and would likely continue to do so with his very last breath. Sometimes Jonah wondered if Machiste was why Faraday picked this town, thinking that a black lawman with only one hand would be pushover. Of course, that obviously turned out to be far from the case.
Now all they had to worry about was getting out of this damn building alive. Faraday's men watched the bank night and day, taking potshots or tossing explosives at anybody who fell into their sights. Machiste and a few others posted as guards would return fire in kind, but that did little to solve the problem of dwindling food supplies, plus an outbreak of cholera rendered what little water they had left undrinkable. That's what had laid their little girl so low, along with the dozen other people around them in the infirmary. If they didn't find a way out of this mess soon, Faraday would be able to waltz in here past all their dead bodies.
"Help me sit her up," Caroline said, and Jonah gently slipped an arm beneath Jessie so his wife could try and feed her some of the milk. She managed a few sips, then began coughing, followed by trickles of vomit coming from the corners of her mouth. Her parents quickly laid her down on her side and let her expel what little was in her stomach. When she was finished, they made her as comfortable as they could, with Caroline wiping the vomit from her face with a rag, same as she'd done numerous times already.
Tears of frustration came to Jonah's eyes as he said, "We should've left two days ago like we planned. Machiste talked us out of it, an' he's still sayin' it's a bad a idea, but this..." He punched his fist against the wooden floorboards. "Dammit, if'n we'd left, she wouldn't be sick!"
"You don't know that." Caroline got to her feet, then pulled her husband up and away from their daughter so as to not disturb her. "You know how it is with cholera: a person could have it for days and not show symptoms. Whether we'd managed to sneak out already or not, Jessie could've still gotten sick."
"But at least somewhere else, we'd be able to get her tuh a doctor. The doc we had here is dead, thanks to them bastards out there." He turned his face away, saying, "This is all muh fault. It was muh idea tuh take out a loan. Hell, it was muh idea tuh move out West in the first place. Ah've always had the worst luck, an' now it's rubbed off on the both of yuh."
"Don't talk like that."
"But it's the truth. Some days, Ah don't even know why yuh love me."
"I love you because you're my husband, and because you've given me a beautiful daughter." Caroline placed her hands on his cheeks and turned his face towards hers. "We've weathered storms together before. We'll weather this one as well."
Jonah let out a heavy sigh, then laid a hand over hers so that it completely covered the ruin that was his right cheek. In all the years they'd been married, she'd put up with so much: his short temper, his time away during the War, the scars he'd come back with on both his body and soul. He thought of all the nights Caroline had held him close after he'd woken up screaming from nightmares of being on the battlefield once more, only now instead of fighting Yankees, he was confronted by red-eyed monsters that were intent upon devouring him and his fellow soldiers. She was his lifeline, same as Jessie was, and he couldn't bear the thought of failing either of them. "Ah'm gonna go talk tuh Machiste again," Jonah said, then kissed his wife on the forehead. "If'n Jessie asks fer me, tell her Ah'll be back quick as a wink."
It took some time, but Jonah managed to persuade the sheriff into letting them slip out right before the train from Sweetwater was scheduled to arrive that evening. The plan was for the three of them to sneak aboard one of the boxcars and hope they could remain hidden until they were far from Faraday's influence. Should they be discovered, Jonah would have on him two ways of dealing with the issue: $50 in double eagles - the last bit of money in the bank that was rightfully theirs - and his matched pair of ivory-handled Colt Dragoons. Which one he'd use would depend upon the situation. Once they were clear, they'd do their best to arrange for some sort of help for the rest of the town, be it a military intervention or otherwise.
The long wait for sunset was almost unbearable. Word of the scheme had quickly spread throughout the folks hunkered down with them, with a few wishing to join their mad dash, but both Machiste and Jonah discouraged such talk. The smaller the party, the better the chance of it succeeding. Besides, Jonah knew it was going to be hard enough to move stealthily while carrying his sick daughter, the last thing he wanted to worry about was corralling a bunch of other people as well. With that in mind, he entrusted one of his pistols to Caroline, glad that he'd taught her the finer points of shooting years prior.
When the sun finally dipped below the horizon, the Hexes gently bundled a blanket around Jessie, who moaned out, "Daddy...I want my daddy..."
"Hush now, little girl, Ah'm here," Jonah replied, smoothing back her long red hair, which was a few shades lighter than his own.
She flinched from his touch. "No...not my daddy."
Poor girl's delirious, he thought as he lifted her into his arms, trying to ignore how light she'd become due to her illness. Caroline led the way out of the bank and into the courtyard, where some folks were gathered to wish them luck. Up on the catwalk, Jonah spotted Durham - who, prior to this debacle, owned the farm bordering the Hex homestead - getting his rifle ready. Sheriff Machiste stood next to the wagons being used to block the main entrance.
"Last chance to back out," Machiste told them. "If Faraday catches on, you'll be better off kicking a hornet's nest in the face."
"Rather go down kickin' than die in here," Jonah replied, then passed his daughter over to one of the townsfolk standing nearby so he could get underneath the wagon, with his wife doing the same. Once they were down there, the girl was passed back to her father, while Machiste signaled Durham to begin firing. The farmer was a crack shot, picking off the nearest sniper on one of the buildings opposite where the Hexes were making their exit, hopefully providing enough of a distraction for them to climb out from under the wagon unnoticed. Once they were clear, the couple made a mad dash through the shadows as Faraday's men and the townsfolk exchanged gunfire. Both the sound and the running reminded Jonah far too much of the War, and he prayed this would be the last time his family was ever subjected to such a thing.
They made it to the edge of the depot just as the train pulled up, crouching behind a pile of old wooden crates while the workers began offloading one of the boxcars. Jonah felt Caroline's hand tighten on his bicep, obviously eager to get aboard, but they had to wait until the coast was clear. He spared a moment to look at her, perhaps even give her a reassuring smile, but such notions left his head when he heard footsteps coming their way. In one fluid motion, Jonah switched the weight of his daughter over to one arm while drawing his pistol with the other, his entire body turning to face a stranger with a rifle pointed directly at them.
"Don't move a muscle," the stranger said. He was dressed in a rather dandy fashion, with a finely-tailored vest and a daisy tucked in his hatband. All in all, a far cry from the rough-and-tumble men Faraday normally employed.
"Ah don't know who yuh are, but Ah ain't got no beef with yuh," Jonah told him in a low voice. "Me an' muh family just want tuh leave town, thet's all."
"That ain't what Mr. Faraday's been sayin'," the stranger replied.
"Ah don't give tinker's cuss what he's been sayin'. Muh daughter's dyin' right here in muh arms, an' Ah'll be damned if'n Ah'm gonna let yuh or anybody else stop us from gettin' her the help she needs."
In the dim light of the lanterns hung around the station, Jonah could see a look of doubt come over the stranger's face, his eyes truly taking in the sight of the family huddled before him. "Please," Caroline said from her place beside her husband, "just let us get on the train and don't tell Faraday you saw us."
"It's a little late for that," Faraday himself called out as he and four of his thugs stepped around the side of the depot. The man approached the stranger and clapped him on the shoulder. "Good work, Lash. I knew I could count on you to help me fight for law and order."
The barrel of Lash's rifle dipped a little as he glanced over at his employer. "Pardon my sayin' so, sir, but these people don't look a bit like the hardcases you claimed was hunkered down in that there bank."
"Don't believe a word they tell you. Just look at Hex there: you call that the face of an honest man?" Faraday's lip curled in disgust. "He and the others stole back the gold they used to pay me, and this cannot stand. We're a civilized society, a land of laws. If this bunch gets their way, where would we be?" He gestured to the other thugs, saying, "Haul 'em over to the bank. We're gonna give those stubborn folk in there a present."
"Don't touch 'em!" Lash hollered as he placed himself between the Hexes and Faraday.
"Well, this is a surprise," Faraday said, cocking an eyebrow. "Throwing your lot in with a bunch of thieves now? That doesn't exactly match your code, does it?"
"My code don't include hurtin' sick little girls, that's for damn sure."
"Shame for you that mine does." With that, Faraday whipped out the pistol holstered on his hip and sent a bullet through Jessie's torso. There was enough force behind the projectile that it passed right through and into Jonah's shoulder, but he didn't even feel it, for his enraged mind was focused on letting loose with his own pistol. Bullets flew everywhere, from Lash and the Hexes as well as Faraday and his men. The cacophony it raised could be heard all the way over at the bank, causing Sheriff Machiste to scramble up onto the catwalk in the vain hope that he could see what was happening out there in the darkness.
He wouldn't know the truth of it all until morning, when Tom Colton, who bartended over at the saloon, snuck over to the bank to inform him that Jonah Hex and his family, along with some fella named Bat Lash, had all been cut down last night, and King Faraday himself was hanging on by a thread with no doctor to tend to him.
It was the pain of his right arm being wrenched from its socket that woke him up. His eyes flew open, and an involuntary cry of agony leapt out of his throat. Naturally, there was a great deal of confusion in his mind, which hadn't fully shook off the fog of slumber, but for a man like Jonah Hex, who could find himself in a life-threatening situation at any moment, he managed to push through it soon enough.
He quickly took in the unfamiliar surroundings: a strange array of bulbous machinery with tube-like metal arms ending in smooth pincers writhing around him, one of which currently had his right bicep in its grip as he dangled a good ten feet off the floor. He could see the pincer shuddering and hear a grinding sound, as though something inside of it were jammed. Nearby, another set of pincers held out his clothes like a mechanical manservant. Before him was a massive circular opening with large clamps set into what looked like a conveyor belt, which ran down a tunnel festooned with a dizzying array of pulsing lights that made Jonah's head feel odd. He forced himself to turn way from the lights and instead concentrate on prying his arm out of the pincer. The task was rather easy: the mechanism just required a little extra force to get working again, and Jonah fell onto the lip of the opening. The functioning pincers rushed forward, presumably to get him clamped onto the conveyor, but Jonah ducked out of their way and leapt at the ones holding his clothes, snagging most of them as he fell through the open air towards the floor far below.
Letting out another cry when his injured shoulder slammed against the floor, he managed to get his feet under him and run for cover - the pincers did their best to pursue, but their arms weren't long enough to reach beneath the machinery he'd wedged himself under. They eventually retracted and an ominous, rhythmic thrumming sound began to fill the chamber around him. Presuming it was an alarm bell of some kind, Jonah looked around for something resembling a door, but spotted none, only endless tubes, columns, and spheres of varying sizes. Figuring down was an easier direction to travel than up, he crept out from beneath the machinery and slid down a sloping metal plain until he found himself in a red-lit alcove. Again, there were no doors within sight, but he couldn't see any pincers either, nor could he hear that alarm anymore, so he deemed it good.
First things first, he thought. Gotta put this dang arm back in place. He'd dislocated his shoulder before, so he dropped the clothing, then stepped close to a thick vertical column and whacked the bulging joint against it - this time, he was able to keep from crying out, despite how much it hurt. After a few stretches and twists to ensure that his arm wouldn't pop out of the socket again, he began pulling on his clothes. All he'd managed to grab was his jeans and chambray shirt, but it was better than nothing. What truly disappointed him was the lack of weapons. Didn't even see muh gunbelts up there, he thought, an' Ah reckon there's no guarantee thet muh Bowie knife was still tucked in the sheath under muh coat collar. In fact, he was beginning to doubt these were actually his clothes: they certainly looked that way, but the material seemed too new, with nary a frayed cuff or bit of discolored fabric in sight. None of this makes a lick of sense...Ah don't even know where the Hell Ah am.
Treading across the metal floor in his bare feet, Jonah searched for a way out of this mechanical nightmare, while his mind tried to dredge up the memory of where he'd been prior to waking. He could recall being on the track of a fella named Tom Colton, who'd shot a fellow gambler in cold blood after a few too many bad hands. His widow not only wanted justice, but an item stolen from her dead husband: a pocket watch that had been in his family for generations. He'd put it up for stakes in his final game, and Colton had made off with it. The bounty hunter could recall his old friend Bat Lash - who, being another of the gamblers present, had witnessed the murder - describing the watch's unique history and features as they rode together across the desert, eventually ending up in a mining town called Last Stand. It was there that the two men cornered Colton in the saloon, and the resulting tussle naturally caught the attention of the local sheriff. Hex was in the midst of explaining the whole situation to him when a horrid shrieking sound arose outside, followed immediately by the panicked cries of townsfolk.
Heading out to see what was the matter, they soon saw a massive, thorn-shaped metallic object piercing the ground in the center of town, along with the bizarre white-skinned monsters that were pouring out of it. The general shape of the monsters was human, but their heads were angular, with black-rimmed eyes the color of blood, slits for noses, and twin protrusions sweeping back upon the tops of their skulls. Most of the monsters were grabbing people to drag back into the object they'd arrived in, though a few sank their razor-sharp teeth into those who dared to fight back. Colton, coward that he was, tried to run off, only to be seized by one of the monsters, while Hex, Lash, and the sheriff opened fire, taking down a half-dozen of the things before being forced to retreat back into the saloon. The three men did their best to barricade the place to protect the townsfolk who'd run inside, but the monsters tore through. The last thing Jonah could recall with any clarity was one of the things reaching out for him, its long fingers wrapping around his skull...
...and then he woke up in the grip of that malfunctioning pincer. It seemed most likely that the monsters had dragged him inside that thorn-shaped object, same as the other folks, but this place appeared to be much larger than the thing he'd seen in the center of town. There was also no one else in sight, be they victims or captors. He presumed someone had to be operating the machinery, and they'd set off the alarm, but if that was the case, why hadn't anybody come after him yet? And where did they stash the townsfolk? More importantly, why were all of them taken in the first place?
He was still pondering those questions when a nearby wall suddenly slid aside. Jonah jumped back, his fists raised, but no one appeared, so he cautiously moved forward to see a chamber similar to the one he'd woken up in, though the circular opening with the conveyor belt was a few feet lower to the floor. As he took in the sight, the end of an enormous pipe just below the opening whirred open and dumped out a naked man with long, snowy-white hair. Reckoning that the pincers would soon pop out of their holes, Jonah sprinted towards the unconscious man and grabbed him by the shoulders, intent of pulling him out of their reach. As predicted, the pincers soon appeared, including a trio holding out some fancy purple garments...and a sword. Jonah let go of the man and jumped up to grab the sword, snagging the garments in the process, then went back to dragging the man out of this chamber and into the one he'd just left. The pincers lunged at them, of course, but now that Hex was armed, he made quick work of them - the moment the blade severed the segmented tube of one of the pincers, that ominous thrumming started up again. Definitely an alarm, the bounty hunter thought, hoisting the man onto his shoulder and sprinting out of the chamber as fast as he could, continuing on until the alarm faded into the distance. Only then did he dare to stop and set his burden down upon the floor.
Despite all the fuss, the man hadn't woken up at all, so Jonah propped him up to a sitting position against the wall and began slapping his face. "C'mon, fella, rise an' shine. Ah ain't gonna carry yuh through this whole damn place." After what seemed like forever, the man's eyelids fluttered, then opened...then his fist came up lightning-fast and struck Hex in the jaw. As he fell back, the man jumped on him, ready to give him another wallop, but Hex threw the man off, yelling, "Settle down, dammit! Don't make me regret savin' yer hide!"
The man leapt to his feet and immediately took up a fighting stance. "Who are you?" he demanded. "Where are we?"
"Muh name's Jonah Hex, an' Ah ain't rightly sure where we are. Been wanderin' around this place for a good half-hour, Ah reckon, an' yo're the first person Ah've found." He handed over the garments he'd grabbed, saying, "Soon as yuh make yerself decent, we'll head out again, see if'n we kin find any of the other townsfolk."
The man unfurled the garment: purple silken robes with gold brocade along the edges. "What's all this?" he asked.
"It's whut them machines was gonna dress yuh in," Jonah replied, then held up the sword. "Ah'm keepin' this fer now, though."
"It's not mine, so no skin off my nose." The man scratched the side of his head, then paused and ran a hank of his long white hair through his fingers. "What the Devil..." he muttered to himself, then said to Hex, "You mentioned machines. Who was operating them?"
"Reckon it's them monsters, even though Ah ain't seen hide nor hair of 'em 'round here. All Ah know is one machine spat yuh out, an' another went tuh pick yuh up, but Ah pulled yuh away afore it could. Ah woke up in a similar situation elsewhere an' managed tuh skedaddle."
"Monsters...you mean the aliens?" When he saw the puzzled look on Hex's face, he explained, "Look, I know it seems crazy, but I have experience with this sort of thing. I'm Agent King Faraday, with the Central Bureau of Intelligence, and while I certainly never expected to get picked up by a UFO, from what I'm seeing around me and what I can recall, I'd say it's pretty damn obvious that I did. Matter of fact, it looks like they picked me up quite a while ago, because this is far from regulation length." He tugged at a lock of his long hair again.
"Thet's a whole lot of words Ah don't understand."
Now it was Faraday's turn to look puzzled. After a moment, he asked, "You said earlier that your name was Jonah Hex? As in the Old West bounty hunter?"
"'Old West'? Is there a new one Ah ain't heard 'bout?"
"You also said that you woke up around some machinery similar to what you found me in?" Hex confirmed this, so Faraday said, "Okay, this is going to sound weird, but what year do you think this is?"
"It's 1875, last Ah checked."
"Good Lord," Faraday breathed out. "Look, I don't know how to tell you this other than blurting it out, but...it's not 1875 anymore. Or at least it wasn't 1875 when I got picked up. God knows what year it is now. Could be a hundred years later or even five hundred since I last..."
"Whut in the blue Hell are yuh sayin'?"
"Never mind for now." Faraday began wrapping the robes around himself, saying, "We just need to find a radio, or the bridge, or something that'll get us off this spaceship so we can make a beeline back to Earth. You're in for a massive shock once we make it back, Hex, but we'll deal with it later."
They continued on down the corridor, away from the area Jonah had found Faraday, with the man peppering the bounty hunter with questions about what he'd seen both in this strange place and in the town of Last Stand. Occasionally, Faraday would mutter words like "suspended animation" and "theory of relativity" and other bits of gobbledygook that made Hex think the fella might be insane. Still, he felt a little better now that someone else was around: Jonah wasn't normally one who liked company, but it was preferable to facing this nightmare alone.
All sense of comfort Faraday's presence brought Jonah soon evaporated when they came across a larger chamber filled with massive liquid-filled glass tubes which ran from floor to ceiling. Inside each of the tubes was a line of people, all of them stark naked and slowly descending into an area so far below that they couldn't see what was down there. It was the same when they looked up: the tops of the tubes reached up into someplace filled with shadows far above their heads. The size of this...this whatever-it-was boggled Hex's mind, filling him with an even greater need to escape it.
"You see anybody you recognize, Hex?" Faraday asked as they cautiously walked across one of the catwalks weaving between the tubes.
"Not a one." Hex was doing his level best to not look down anymore. He had no fear of heights, but the fact the he couldn't see the bottom of this room unnerved him. Instead, his eyes flicked over the faces of the people as they drifted downward to parts unknown. Hundreds of men, women, and children - Christ Almighty, there were children here! - all asleep in their isolated glass tubes, oblivious to the duo walking past. After a while, Jonah noticed something odd about the people in the tubes, so he paused in front of one containing a little girl who looked to be about twelve or so, her long red hair just a few shades lighter than Jonah's own. She had a very distinct spray of freckles across her cheeks, and as she slid out of sight, Jonah peered at the next one and saw the same pattern...and so did the girl after her. "This ain't possible," he said.
Faraday moved over beside him. "Yeah, I spotted it too. They're all duplicates, like they're being cranked out on an assembly line." The agent leaned closer to one of the other tubes to take a better look - inside was a black man whose right hand had been amputated just above the wrist. "I read a book about something like this. Body Snatchers, I think it was called. Giant seed pods from outer space coming to Earth and making copies of people while they sleep. Overall, they're exactly like the original people - same appearance, same memories, even the same scars - but in truth, they're completely alien. The book was fiction, but maybe the writer was on to something."
"Copies," Jonah echoed, then looked down at his clothes, at the perfectly clean and pressed cuffs on his shirtsleeves, and then at the palms of his hands. No calluses, he thought. Same scars, but they don't look as old as they should. With trembling fingers, he reached up and touched his ruined right cheek. It don't feel right. It's close, damn close, but the hole should be wider, an' muh vision in muh right eye ain't as cloudy as usual. Been so overwhelmed by everything else 'round here thet Ah didn't even notice 'til now.
"You alright there?" Faraday turned towards Jonah, who'd begun breathing in panicked gasps. "Hex? Can you hear me?"
"We ain't real," he managed to say. "We're copies...not even good'uns. Messed up yer hair...messed up muh face." Hex whirled about on the catwalk, desperately looking for the tube that contained himself, or rather the duplicates of the person he thought himself to be. He couldn't find it, but he did see three grayish-white figures moving on a catwalk about a hundred feet away. Then he heard an inhuman wail that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and the figures began leaping across the distance, their red eyes blazing and their claws leaving scratch marks on the glass tubes.
Faraday yanked his arm, yelling, "Come on!" But Jonah didn't move, so Faraday ran off without him. He didn't get far: two of the monsters pounced upon the agent, who got in a few solid punches before one of them ripped Faraday's chest open with its claws. The third monster perched itself upon the railing of the catwalk like a gargoyle, its eyes fixed upon Jonah. For his part, Jonah still possessed enough sense to raise the sword, but that was all. His mind was still reeling from the revelation that he was merely a cheap copy of the real Jonah Hex. All the memories in his head, not to mention all the emotions attached to them...none of that actually belonged to him. He'd been cobbled together like Frankenstein's Monster for some unknown reason, given the thoughts and abilities of someone else. The notion was too much for him to take. He wanted to collapse onto the catwalk, wrap his arms over his head, and start screaming...
And yet there was something deep inside him that refused to do so. Was he a cheap copy? Yes, that seemed to be the case. But the man he'd been made to resemble, both inside and out, wasn't the sort to give in at the drop of a hat. His brain was filled with decades of memories fraught with countless tragedies, innumerable deaths, unspeakable atrocities...and through it all, the real Jonah Hex never stopped fighting, no matter how horrible the odds were of survival. To do anything less in this moment, copy or no, would be unthinkable.
Letting loose with an Apache war cry, Jonah charged ahead, swinging the sword at the monster as it sprung off the railing. The two that had killed Faraday joined the fight moments later, and soon all three were battering him, clawing at him, sinking their teeth into his flesh, yet Jonah kept on attacking with the ferocity of a madman. It wasn't until one of the monsters struck him across the back of the head hard enough to snap his neck that the fight to came to its inevitable end, and Hex's bloodied, lifeless body dropped onto the catwalk, the sword falling from his hand.
A few moments passed with the trio of monsters standing perfectly still, their shapeshifting powers allowing them to heal their wounds relatively quick, all the while communing telepathically with their master. Warworld was praising its adopted children for their actions, promising the White Martians a hunt alongside their other brethren as a reward. But first, they must take the corpses to be rendered, just as all expired clones were. The White Martians subtly bowed their heads, then two of them picked up the corpses, while the third retrieved the sword so as to return it to the Skartaris armory.
As they traveled to their respective destinations within Warworld, they passed other White Martians, but none paid them any attention. Each knew the task they had to perform, so there was no need for fraternization - if Warworld wanted them to work together, it would tell them. When the two carrying the corpses reached the rendering vat, they tossed the bodies in without a second thought. The organic slurry lapped at the corpses, dissolving their clothes and breaking the cells back down into their basic elements so as to reuse them in the cloning process.
It was a very efficient system: when a new victim was brought onboard, Warworld's ancient computers scanned their brain to add its contents to the vast database, while DNA samples were taken to ensure that the body could be duplicated just as precisely as the mind. Admittedly, this was a traumatic process that tended to cause temporary amnesia in those who underwent it, but the results could not be denied.
Then the gantlet would begin: the original victim was subjected to one fearsome situation after another so Warworld could discern their talents and temperament. It was not just interested in those who could fight well, but also those whose emotional states could be heightened enough that Warworld could be properly fueled. Information would be force-fed into their brains so they could fulfill whatever role Warworld wished them to play in any given scenario. Hero or villain, coward or conqueror, lover or killer...the more versatile the victim proved to be, the more scenarios they could be inserted into, until the victim inevitably perished. Once that occurred, their clone template would go into production so they could be added to the scenarios instead.
The template derived from Jonah Hex had been in use for nearly 150 years, while the template from King Faraday had been in use for roughly half that time.
Three new victims were running the gantlet at the moment, and Warworld felt they held great promise. So far, they'd each shown great ability to generate fear and pain and terror, both from themselves and from those around them. Their clones would be invaluable for providing fuel to the weapon within Warworld's core, which sat idle as it searched the Multiverse for the key necessary to unlock it. Someday, every living thing in existence would tremble as it unleashed its fury upon them. Until then, Warworld would have to content itself with the echoing screams of those who'd already fallen in its maw.
He awoke with a start, gasping, his entire body tensing due to the images that lingered on in his mind's eye: monstrous figures with red eyes and skull-white faces all around him, their clawed hands reaching out to grab him. It had the weight of memory, but of course that couldn't be so, for no such creatures existed...and if they did, he'd certainly have a better recollection of them when awake.
With a groan, he pushed back his hat, rubbed a hand over his face, then sat up straight in the upholstered chair he'd dozed off in. He eyed the empty liquor bottle sitting on the desk in front of him and thought, Reckon Ah overdid it. 'Course, who kin blame me with a selection as fine as this? He stood up and strolled over to the well-stocked bar in the office above the saloon, running a finger over the fine mahogany. Yessir, for all the troubles this little operation had run into, there were some mighty fine upsides to it as well. Outside, he could occasionally hear gunfire, followed by laughter as his men did a little trick shooting. Whether they were taking aim at inanimate objects or folks in the street, he wasn't certain, nor did he really care.
There was a knock on the door, and he heard Baxter say, "Mister Hex? I-I brought your lunch. Sorry for being so late with it."
Jonah Hex went over to the door and pulled it open, then made of show of pulling out his pocket watch. "Yo're very late. Over two hours, it seems."
"Sorry...I'm sorry, b-b-but the supplies..." The bartender came into the room, his head low as he carried the tray over to the desk. "I know you're particular about your meals, so it..."
The moment the tray was set down, Hex grabbed Baxter by the scruff of the neck and whirled him around, so that the man's pudgy face was mere inches away from Hex's scarred visage. "Ah'm also particular 'bout punctuality. Ah don't like delays. Thet's why Ah've been so cross lately. This keeps up, Lord knows who Ah'm liable tuh take muh anger out on."
"Y-y-y-yessir. I'm sorry, sir. It won't happen again."
Without another word, Hex shoved Baxter towards the door, allowing the bartender to escape unscathed...for now. He then sat at the desk once more and dug into his meal: a Hamburg steak with rice and beans on the side. Far from the worst meal he'd ever eaten, but he'd certainly had better since taking over Last Stand. This siege had been going on for too long, and he was indeed getting fed up with it. At the outset, taking over the town looked easy enough, what with so many people willing to put up the deeds to their houses and mines and such in exchange for loans. Certainly surprised 'em when he started repossessing their property the moment they began missing interest payments. A revolt was to be expected, of course, which was why he had Tom and Griz and the others waiting in the wings, along with a passel of paid-off judges. They were close to getting Sheriff Durham over to their side when that good-for-nothing gambler Bat Lash stuck his nose in. Then the townsfolk took over the bank, barricaded themselves inside, and ever since then, it had been day after day of random bullets and insults lobbed between parties with no end in sight.
How'd yuh do it, Pa? Jonah pondered as he shoveled a forkful of beans into his mouth. Ah saw whut yuh did in Willow Creek, turnin' it into a haven fer outlaws. Too bad fer yuh an' yer pals thet Ah came along an'...
And what? He felt himself drawing a blank. Jonah could recall walking the streets of that snow-covered town, and his father bragging about how they were going to head out and pull off a heist on the railway located not far from there, but that was all. Matter of fact, it felt like there were parts of his memory being pulled away from him, as though his own mind was trying to hide something from view. Staring straight ahead, his meal forgotten, Jonah struggled to hold onto what little he could remember, even as he felt it slip out of his grasp bit by bit.
The sunlight pouring through the windows seemed to momentarily brighten, making the liquor bottles on the bar sparkle like diamonds in the corner of Jonah's eye. Stiffly, he got up and walked over to the bar, his expression vacant as he followed the sudden compulsion to pour himself a drink. In an almost mechanical fashion, he grabbed a bottle, uncorked it, and brought it to his lips. Some of the whiskey spilled through the hole in his right cheek, but the majority of it went down his gullet, dissolving the resistance he'd been putting up against the force that was working so hard to obscure his memories of what really happened in Willow Creek.
When he'd finished the bottle, he wiped the back of his hand over his lips and cheek, while his expression went from vacant back to the steely-eyed glare he normally gave the world. Tuesday. The thought pushed itself to the forefront of Jonah's mind. Ah promised 'em a payday by Tuesday, an' thet's only a couple of days from now. He walked over to the window to survey a certain corner of his little kingdom: though he couldn't see all of the bank from this angle, he could see well enough the pair of wagons that the townsfolk had rolled in front of the courtyard entrance. He was fairly certain he caught of glimpse of Bat Lash crouched just below the top of the wall as well. For a brief second, Hex was overcome with the strange feeling that, under different circumstances, he and Lash could've been friends. Such a notion, of course, had no basis in reality. A man like Bat Lash didn't know what it was like to struggle in this world, while a man like Jonah Hex had known nothing but struggle from the first day he drew breath.
As he gazed out the window, he noticed a couple of the snipers on the roof across from him were turning to look down at the end of the street opposite the bank. Jonah looked as well to see a tall, slim figure on horseback slowly riding into town. Going by the long duster and wide-brimmed hat they were dressed in, Jonah presumed the figure was a man - to be sure, they exuded an eerie calmness, paying little mind to all the gun-toting men staring at them as they rode by. It wasn't until the figure passed directly beneath his window that Hex realized he was looking at a woman. Peculiar, he thought, then he noticed one of the snipers signaling to him. Hex waved him off: no need to shoot the gal just yet, not when they didn't know what her business might be.
As she stopped at the fountain in front of the saloon so her horse could take a drink, Jonah moved to the office door. The sight of the woman tickled something in the back of his brain, and he felt a need to scratch it. Stepping onto the second-floor landing that ran the perimeter of the saloon, he looked over at the batwing doors below just in time to see the woman walk in. Comin' right tuh me, he thought. Convenient. He watched as she approached to the bar and ordered whiskey, while Tom got up from his spot at the poker table. Jonah wasn't surprised: Tom Colton had already bedded down with every woman in town he could get his hands on thrice over, and presuming she survived this damn siege, he'd already laid a marker on the Pembrokes' twelve-year-old daughter Jessie, who was currently hunkered down with her parents inside the bank (Hex found it distasteful to take a girl that ain't had her first blood yet, but it didn't matter to him one way or another how Tom spent his off-time).
To Hex's amusement, the woman had no interest in Tom's shenanigans and shrugged him off, then slammed his face into the bar when he wouldn't take no for an answer. That led to a tussle between her, Tom, and a few of his other men. All the while, Hex watched from the top of the stairs, that tickle in the back of his brain growing. It wasn't that he knew her, more like he knew someone like her. A name floated briefly into his consciousness - Tallulah - then was snatched away, just like his memories of Willow Creek, though he didn't notice this time around. The feelings of lust that the name brought on remained behind, however, growing as the woman brought out a golden rope and began using it like a whip on the men. She moved with the grace of a dancer, her long black hair fanning out behind her as she tossed them about. When she tossed one of them through the saloon window, Hex reluctantly decided it was time to step in, moving down the stairs to put a stop to the floor show.
Then Tom drew his pistol and pointed it at the woman's back.
Without hesitation, Jonah drew his ivory-handled Colt Dragoon and blasted the pistol out of Tom's hand before the man could use it. "No one likes a back-shooter, Tom," he called out. This earned him a nasty glare from the man, but Hex just glared back. "Outside," Hex ordered. "Now." As Tom left, Hex turned his attention to the woman, who was coiling up the strange rope and attaching it back onto her belt. In a more congenial tone, Jonah said to her, "Ah apologize fer muh men. They kin be...rough around the edges." He flashed her a smile. "But then again, so is the town."
The woman gave him a hard look, but said nothing. She then turned back to the bar, picking up the whiskey bottle Baxter had left for her. Despite witnessing Tom's utter failure just minutes earlier, Jonah pressed on, saying, "Perhaps yuh'd join me fer a drink?"
She paused, turning his way ever so slightly.
"Ah'll give yuh the good stuff," he told her, then moved back up the stairs, hoping she would follow. He was halfway back to his office when he heard her footsteps behind him. The smile on Jonah Hex's lips became more genuine as he thought of guiding her into the bedroom and seeing how graceful she could truly be. But first, he'd have to win her over to his cause.
And that's where the fun would begin.
*CONTINUED IN JUSTICE LEAGUE: WARWORLD*